Our Fitness Blog

Ignite The Results, Ignore The Minutiae

If you are ready to ignite your results, then it’s time to ignore the minutiae and focus on the big picture. This will be your roadmap to success. Are you ready?

You are focused and ready to make health, fitness and nutrition lifestyle changes. You are frustrated by your lack of results and you are frustrated by your waning motivation and commitment. Change is necessary and you are ready. You are tired of your body weight and body fat increasing every year despite "trying every diet imaginable." And in addition, although sometimes sporadic, you try to maintain a consistent workout schedule. But results are still not showing.

The above is a very common scenario for men and women. The very next steps these individuals take can often times be that make it or break it moment. While the energy and enthusiasm to make these changes is admirable, the success or lack thereof will depend on where the energy, enthusiasm and focus is placed.

For example, an obese individual who is now ready to make a number of lifestyle changes becomes over focused on sweeteners in certain foods. And you hear such questions as, "this food has sweetener-x in it, I heard that's not good for you; is it bad?" At first glance, this "attention to detail" may seem like a positive. But, this can be the start of just another downward spiral, heading down a dark, lonely road. It’s a great example of self-sabotage.

Here is some tough love... over the past many months and years, this individual’s body weight and body fat has continued to increase. During this time, making the right food choices was not a priority, hence, the constant weight gain. This individual ate and/or drank a lot to pack on this amount of weight. So, going from a mindset of, "I’ll eat just about anything", to all of a sudden being worried about one ingredient, a sweetener...C'mon now. Make sense? Again, wanting to focus on a healthier lifestyle is fantastic, but we have a lot bigger fish to fry than a sweetener (especially when the individual is obese and needs to focus on body fat loss). Focusing on a sweetener is just focusing on the minutiae and this does not produce good results (in these early, critical stages of body transformation).

There are so many factors of daily nutrition, from the time we wake up until the time we go to bed, that we need to get aligned each and every day. It is big steps like this that, in time, will lead to body transformation and body fat loss. This is the big picture and we need to focus 100% on the big picture. Consuming sweetener-x is not a make it or break it moment, not even close, when it comes to body fat loss. But, the big picture of how much sleep you get each night, eating right away upon awakening, the right balance of carbohydrate-protein-fat at every meal and snack, consuming the right amount of water at every meal and snack, working out smart in the right heart rate zones, working out in order to build lean muscle, etc., is the key to success. This is the big picture and this is where we need to focus.

Don't get blinded by the minutiae (the definition of minutiae is the small or trivial details of something). I realize that for those who have been overweight and over fat for some time have somewhat of a knee-jerk reaction when they are ready to make some lifestyle changes and often times this knee-jerk reaction is to go right to the small details and focus on things like the sweetener (this is the self-sabotage we want to eliminate). When in fact, that is not going to help them shed the excess body fat that they need to lose. Focusing on the minutiae takes one’s energy, attention and focus off of the big picture (and this will derail the individual).

Now, when someone gets absolutely ripped, lean and shredded; a male with 5-6% body fat, a female with 13-14% body fat, okay, sure if they want to start focusing on the smaller details to dial things in even tighter, fantastic. Why is it okay at this stage? It's simple, these individuals have done virtually everything they can in terms of nutrition and working out to get as ripped, lean, light and healthy as they can. Therefore, if they want to "sharpen the knife" and focus on some of the smaller details, fantastic; that would be the next stage.

Let's relate this to a new runner. This individual is overweight and wants to start exercising and eating healthier. So they start running. They decide they want to run 5K races. They jump into one right away and their finishing time is 45 minutes. Should this runner start focusing right away on going to the track in doing "speed work" in order to get faster? Absolutely not; this would be like focusing on the sweetener because this is the minutiae. This individual has a lot bigger fish to fry than focusing on track work and speed work. They need to simply get fit, start putting in some running miles, lose a lot of body fat and weight and then continue to focus on the process.

Now, let's look at a runner that is running a 15 minute 5K. Does it make sense for him/her to focus on speed work in order to get even faster? Of course it does; just like the super lean individual above, this individual has done a lot of great things in order to reach this level of 5K performances. So, it's now time for them to start "sharpening a knife" to get to that next level.

In summary, keep bringing that great energy, enthusiasm and dedication to wanting to better yourself in terms of health, fitness and nutrition. And when you start this journey and all along the journey, focus on the big picture and ignore the minutiae. Because when you do, in time, you will ignite the results.